Lisa Bourne

LIFESITE NEWS

Apr 15, 2016 – 8:30 pm EST
Parents fighting hospital to keep 2-year-old son on life support

brain death

SACRAMENTO, California, April 15, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A little California boy’s life hangs in the balance as his parents fight to keep him alive during a legal dispute over his condition, with a judge today granting a temporary reprieve while they seek answers.

Two-year-old Israel Stinson’s parents were in Placer County Superior Court this morning petitioning to keep their son on life support until the boy can be assessed by an outside specialist, after the hospital declared him brain-dead and said his treatment would be withdrawn.

Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) had obtained a temporary restraining order yesterday enjoining Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Sacramento from stopping the treatment necessary to keep Israel’s condition stable in the meantime. This morning they successfully petitioned for an extension, allowing Israel’s Stinson’s family time to get a second opinion.
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The family’s attorney Alexandra Snyder was happy with the outcome, telling LifeSiteNews, “This is honestly a miracle that the court ordered an extension of one more week to give the family time.”

“We got what we expected and what we hoped for,” she said.

Israel Stinson was taken to the ER at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento April 1 after suffering a severe asthma attack. The hospital stabilized him and recommended he be transferred to UC Davis Medical Center, because Mercy did not have a pediatric care unit. He was transported later the same day.

“They took his tube out and he was okay,” Snyder said.

The day after his admission to UC Davis, Israel Stinson suffered another attack, during which he stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest while his mother searched for medical staff to attend to him. He was resuscitated and put on a ventilator.
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A letter left by Israel’s mother, Jonee Fonseca, for healthcare workers.

At the family’s request Israel was moved April 12 to Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center, because they were concerned about his care at UC Davis, and his mother thought he would need to be treated there due to the insurance she carried.

Their intent in sending him to Kaiser was for care, Snyder told LifeSiteNews. But less than 24 hours after his transfer to Kaiser, the hospital informed his parents of its intent to test Israel to determine his brain activity, and indicated his life support would likely be withdrawn.

{The “test” likely was the APNEA TEST which involves removing the oxygen from the patient for a few minutes to see if they can breathe without it; the test usually KILLS THE PATIENT thereby  justifying the doctors’ opinion that the patient is ‘brain dead.’ – Abyssum}

“They said, ‘We’re going to take him off life support,’ said Snyder. “The family had not heard that at UC Davis.”

Israel’s mother Jonee Fonseca, posted notes around his hospital room expressly instructing Kaiser not to perform any tests on him without her permission, informing the hospital she was seeking a restraining order.

Despite this, Kaiser conducted the tests anyway against her wishes, and declared him brain dead, prompting her to reach out to LLDF for help. The legal foundation has been involved in the defense of Center for Medical Progress investigator David Daleiden, and was part of the coalition that worked over the last two years to raise awareness of an illegal Alabama abortion mill, closed earlier this year.

Attorney Snyder said the same thing may also have happened at the previous hospital, but regardless of the circumstances, California law mandates a second opinion in cases of declared brain death.

Further, she said, doctors have expected throughout that Israel’s condition would deteriorate very quickly; however, it has not changed in ten days.

The family will consult with neonatologist and clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Toledo Doctor Paul Byrne. Byrne is an expert on life issues who advocated for the family of Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old California girl declared brain dead in late 2013 who became the subject of an extensive battle over her condition and care. She later became responsive.

Byrne will make a referral to an in-state doctor who will examine Israel and evaluate his condition, something that another week will be just enough to allow for, Snyder told LifeSiteNews.

Numerous instances have been reported of patients having been declared brain dead, only later to recover, and Snyder said the definition of brain death is the subject of some dispute in California.

Snyder also said the family is well aware of the gravity of Israel’s situation.

“They know their son is not in good shape,” she said. “But they are people of strong faith, and they believe that God is in control.”

“But they do believe that it is their job to fight for their son,” she continued. “And they will fight for him.”

Israel Stinson’s parents would like to encourage other families in their situation, said Snyder.

“Regardless of what happens with their case,” Snyder told LifeSiteNews, “they want to show other families that they can fight for their kids.”

She and Israel’s parents are due back in court next Friday morning, April 22.

“We are grateful for this additional week,” said Snyder.

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The U.S. Bishops conference asked Catholic News Service Editor-in-Chief Tony Spence to resign today after reports on his public opposition to religious freedom laws.
Claire Chretien Claire Chretien

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NewsCatholic Church Thu Apr 14, 2016 – 5:11 pm EST
BREAKING: Head of US Bishops’ news agency resigns, blames ‘far right blogosphere’

catholic , homosexuality , tony spence , us bishops

Update: James L. Rogers, the USCCB’s chief communications officer, responded to LifeSiteNews Friday morning. “As a matter of routine personnel policy, I wouldn’t have additional background to offer,” he said.

WASHINGTON, D.C. April 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews)—The editor-in-chief and director of the U.S. bishops’ official news service resigned Wednesday at the request of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference general secretary.

Tony Spence, who had worked for Catholic News Service since 2004, had publicly criticized religious freedom and bathroom privacy legislation on his Twitter feed.

The news comes mere days after the Lepanto Institute issued a report highlighting Spence’s controversial tweets, wherein he had called religious freedom laws “pro-discrimination” and “stupid.” LifeSiteNews ran an article on the report Tuesday.

“The far right blogsphere and their troops started coming after me again, and it was too much for the USCCB,” Spence told the National Catholic Reporter Thursday. “The secretary general [of the U.S. bishops’ conference] asked for my resignation, because the conference had lost confidence in my ability to lead CNS.”

NCR’s Dennis Coday writes:

Bloggers from websites of The Lepanto Institute, The Church Militant and LifeSiteNews.com posted stories in the last week that accused Spence of issuing “public statements decrying proposed legislation in several states that would protect religious freedom and deny men pretending to be women the ‘right’ to enter women’s bathrooms.”

According to the newspaper, following a meeting with Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield, the general secretary of the bishops’ conference, “Spence was escorted from the conference office building without being allowed to speak to his newsroom staff.”

They continue: “Staff in the Washington office were told of Spence’s leaving shortly after 4 p.m., and James L. Rogers, chief communications officer for the bishops’ conference, sent an email memo to all CNS staff “to share news of Tony stepping down as editor-in-chief, effective today.” Rogers confirmed to them that he sent the memo.

Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute, praised the USCCB. “Today, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops demonstrated the clarity and leadership so desperately yearned for by the Catholic faithful,” Hichborn told LifeSiteNews.

“The investigative work of the Lepanto Institute has always been in the service of our bishops and priests,” Hichborn said. “Let us pray for all those involved and hope that Catholic News Service can fulfill its mission in the spirit of the new evangelization and in fidelity to our bishops and the Magisterium of the Holy Catholic Church.”

Over the past few weeks, Spence had tweeted criticism of a new North Carolina law that requires individuals to use bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex. The Catholic bishops in North Carolina had previously encouraged the state legislature to overturn a city ordinance that allowed men to access women’s bathrooms.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and CNS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The National Catholic Reporter indicated that Spence was considered “a member of the [USCCB] senior staff.” A thirty-year veteran of Catholic journalism, he was president of the Catholic Press Association from 1994-1996, and a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications from 2006-2011.
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Head of U.S. Bishops’ news service: religious freedom laws are ‘pro-discrimination’ and ‘stupid’

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Planned Parenthood investigator David Daleiden walks into the courthouse in Houston. Lisa Bourne / LifeSiteNews
Ben Johnson Ben Johnson Follow Ben

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NewsAbortion Thu Apr 14, 2016 – 4:39 pm EST
BREAKING: David Daleiden’s attorneys file motions to dismiss all charges

center for medical progress cmp , david daleiden , devon anderson , organ selling , planned parenthood organ harvesting scandal

Sign the petition demanding that the charges against David Daleiden be dropped. Click here!

HOUSTON, April 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A Houston district attorney colluded with Planned Parenthood to indict undercover pro-life investigators on charges that could net them 20 years in prison, according to attorneys for David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt.

Today, their legal counsel filed two legal motions to dismiss all charges pending in Texas against the pair.

“The DA’s office has chosen to wage a war on the pro-life movement,” one of Daleiden’s attorneys, Jared Woodfill, said during a press conference today. “We believe there is clear evidence of Planned Parenthood actually colluding with and pushing the District Attorney’s office to move forward with these indictments.”

On January 25, the Harris County grand jury indicted Daleiden and Merritt for using false identification, a felony, and a misdemeanor charge of attempting to purchase human organs. If convicted, they could face more than two decades in prison.

Daleiden and Merritt are accused of using a fake ID while posing as purchasers for a biomedical company. The Center for Medical Progress’ 30-month-long investigation, which went public last July, exposed Planned Parenthood’s practices of harvesting human organs from aborted babies, then receiving payment for its “fetal tissue donation” program.

One of those outlets, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, is based in Houston. But the grand jury empaneled to hear legal complaints about the group instead told District Attorney Devon Anderson it was charging Daleiden and Merritt.

Daleiden’s attorneys said that was no coincidence. The abortion provider worked with Anderson’s office behind the scenes to assure the legal tables were turned.

Planned Parenthood’s attorney, Josh Schaeffer, told the media he “explicitly pushed prosecutors” to charge the whistleblowers instead of his client. He added he and prosecutors maintained a “dialogue…about the details of the case, and that kept going throughout.”

Daleiden’s attorneys say they enjoyed no such collaborative relationship with Anderson’s office.

The notion that ongoing, secret investigations had been leaked is one of three grounds they cite for dismissing the charges against Daleiden and Merritt.

Texas state law holds that indictments shall not be made public “if the defendant is not in custody,” the motion to quash states, but the indictments against CMP’s investigators were made available on the internet the day they were released.

Attorneys also maintain that the “hold over” order for the grand jury was too vague, which broadened its authority beyond any legally permissible bounds.

“You would expect this in New York and California but not in Houston,” Woodfill told Breitbart.

In addition to the Houston case, Daleiden’s attorneys with the Life Legal Defense Foundation say the 27-year-old could face charges in his native California, after state agents raided his apartment and confiscated all his videos, including unreleased footage of Planned Parenthood.

Pro-life advocates have said that California Attorney General Kamala Harris should resign, because she has taken tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Planned Parenthood and other organizations that support abortion-on-demand, creating a conflict of interest.

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Voice of the Family

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OpinionCatholic Church, Homosexuality, Specialty pages, Vatican Synod on the Family Thu Apr 14, 2016 – 3:24 pm EST
Pope’s exhortation adopts the approach to same-sex unions that Synod fathers rejected

catholic , pope francis , same-sex ‘marriage’ , synod on the family

April 14, 2016 (Voice of the Family) – Throughout the two “synods on the family” held in Rome in October 2014 and October 2015 there was intense pressure for the Church to change her immutable teaching on homosexuality and homosexual unions. This pressure came not only from “LGBT” activists but also from those responsible for preparing the official synodal documents.
The approach to homosexual unions in the synod documents

See the appendix at the end of the article for fuller extracts from the synodal documents.

1. The Extraordinary Synod’s interim Relatio post disceptationem affirmed “that unions between people of the same sex cannot be considered on the same footing as matrimony between man and woman”. This implies that there is some footing on which same-sex unions can be considered legitimate.

2. This approach was vigorously opposed by many synod fathers. The fruits of their opposition can be seen in the Extraordinary Synod’s final report (Relatio synodi). In this document the formulation above was replaced with a statement taken from a previous ecclesiastical document: “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”

3. In June 2015 the Synod Secretariat published the Instrumentum Laboris, the working document of the Ordinary Synod. In paragraph 8 the Synod Secretariat once more suggested that homosexual unions had some degree of legitimacy. They did this by acknowledging the necessity of “defining the specific character of such unions in society” while calling for “a more thorough examination of human nature and culture which is based not simply on biology and sexual difference.”

4. The synod fathers rejected this approach for a second time, as can be seen in the final report of the Ordinary Synod, which repeats the same magisterial teaching as the final report of the Extraordinary Synod.
Amoris Laetitia reintroduces the rejected approach

We have seen above that both the Relatio post disceptationem of the Extraordinary Synod and the Instrumentum Laboris of the Ordinary Synod included passages that suggested that homosexual unions, while not equal to marriage, nonetheless have some degree of legitimacy. The synod fathers rejected this approach: no such passages are found in the final reports of either synod.

The rejected approach has however been re-introduced in Amoris Laetitia which states, in paragraph 52, that:

We need to acknowledge the great variety of family situations that can offer a certain stability, but de facto or same-sex unions, may not simply be equated with marriage.

This implies:

that “same-sex unions” are one of the “great variety of family situations”;
that same-sex unions offer a “certain stability”; and
that same-sex unions can be “equated” with marriage on some level, if not “simply.”

Furthermore the paragraph states that “only the exclusive and indissoluble union between a man and a woman has a plenary role to play in society as a stable commitment that bears fruit in new life.” To state that only marriage has a “plenary role” necessarily means that other forms of union do have some role to play in society.

The Voice of the Family coalition has decades of collective experience lobbying at the United Nations, the European Union and at the level of national government. We know very well the significance of such phrases, which are deliberately inserted into documents so that they can later be exploited to pursue a radical ideological agenda.

It is for this reason that governments of many nations, with the assistance of pro-life and pro-family campaigners, have fought for decades, and are still fighting, to keep such terms out of official documents.

The tragic significance of their appearance in a document promulgated by the Pope cannot be overemphasised.

APPENDIX: SYNODAL TEXTS ON HOMOSEXUALITY

Relatio post disceptationem of the Extraordinary Synod of the Family, 13th October 2014

Welcoming homosexual persons

50. Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?

51. The question of homosexuality leads to a serious reflection on how to elaborate realistic paths of affective growth and human and evangelical maturity integrating the sexual dimension: it appears therefore as an important educative challenge. The Church furthermore affirms that unions between people of the same sex cannot be considered on the same footing as matrimony between man and woman. Nor is it acceptable that pressure be brought to bear on pastors or that international bodies make financial aid dependent on the introduction of regulations inspired by gender ideology.

52. Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners. Furthermore, the Church pays special attention to the children who live with couples of the same sex, emphasizing that the needs and rights of the little ones must always be given priority.

Relatio synodi of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, 18th October 2014

Pastoral Attention towards Persons with Homosexual Tendencies

55. Some families have members who have a homosexual tendency. In this regard, the synod fathers asked themselves what pastoral attention might be appropriate for them in accordance with Church teaching: “There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.” Nevertheless, men and women with a homosexual tendency ought to be received with respect and sensitivity. “Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, 4).

56. Exerting pressure in this regard on the Pastors of the Church is totally unacceptable: it is equally unacceptable for international organizations to link their financial assistance to poorer countries with the introduction of laws that establish “marriage” between persons of the same sex.

Instrumentum Laboris of the Ordinary Synod, 23 June 2015

[8.] At the same time, however, some want to recognize the stable character of a couple’s relationship apart from sexual difference, and place it on the same level as the marital relationship, which is intrinsically connected to the roles of a father and a mother and determined on the biological basis of child-bearing. The resulting confusion is of no assistance in defining the specific character of such unions in society.

…

Pastoral Attention towards Persons with Homosexual Tendencies

130. (55) Some families have members who have a homosexual tendency. In this regard, the synod fathers asked themselves what pastoral attention might be appropriate for them in accordance with Church teaching: “There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.” Nevertheless, men and women with a homosexual tendency ought to be received with respect and sensitivity. “Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, 4).

131. The following point needs to be reiterated: every person, regardless of his/her sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his/her human dignity and received with sensitivity and great care in both the Church and society. It would be desirable that dioceses devote special attention in their pastoral programmes to the accompaniment of families where a member has a homosexual tendency and of homosexual persons themselves.

132. (56) Exerting pressure in this regard on the Pastors of the Church is totally unacceptable: it is equally unacceptable for international organizations to link their financial assistance to poorer countries with the introduction of laws that establish “marriage” between persons of the same sex.

Relazione Finale of the Ordinary Synod on the Family, 24 October 2015

76. The Church’s attitude is like that of her Master, who offers his boundless love to every person without exception (cf. MV, 12). To families with homosexual members, the Church reiterates that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his/her dignity and received with respect, while carefully avoiding “every sign of unjust discrimination” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons, 4). Specific attention is given to guiding families with homosexual members. Regarding proposals to place unions of homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family” (ibid). In every way, the Synod maintains as completely unacceptable that local Churches be subjected to pressure in this matter and that international bodies link financial aid to poor countries to the introduction of laws to establish “marriage” between people of the same sex.

Amoris Laetitia, Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis, 19 March 2016

[52.]… There is a failure to realize that only the exclusive and indissoluble union between a man and a woman has a plenary role to play in society as a stable commitment that bears fruit in new life. We need to acknowledge the great variety of family situations that can offer a certain stability, but de facto or same-sex unions, for example, may not simply be equated with marriage.

…

251. In discussing the dignity and mission of the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, “as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family”. It is unacceptable “that local Churches should be subjected to pressure in this matter and that international bodies should make financial aid to poor countries dependent on the introduction of laws to establish ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex”.

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